"We are working on moving the scaffolding of Twitter into the background," Vivian Schiller said at a media conference in Denver this week.

"By bringing the content of Twitter forward and pushing the scaffolding of the language of Twitter to the background, we can increase high-quality interactions and make it more likely that new or casual users will find this service as indispensable as our existing core users do."

She added: "We took initial steps in that direction with the introduction of media forward timelines and in-line social actions in October, and we're already starting to see early signs that those initiatives are working well."

Users testing Twitter's Android beta app have already reported that the @-reply and hashtag symbols have disappeared from view.

Facebook operates a similar system, where users are able to type @ to add a friend's name but the symbol is hidden from view once submitted.